


From Whom Do I Hope For Help, O' Heavens, If Cruel Are Those Who Love Me?

by pocketsizedquasar



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Nightmares, implied trauma/ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 15:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketsizedquasar/pseuds/pocketsizedquasar
Summary: In which Ishmael wakes both from and into his nightmares.Title is a reference to a line from an opera (of which I know nothing else about).





	From Whom Do I Hope For Help, O' Heavens, If Cruel Are Those Who Love Me?

In the good dreams, Queequeg kisses him.    
In the bad dreams, he does everything else.    
  
The good dreams are  _ good _ because they are easy to wake up from. Morning finds him a little breathless, a little longing, the memory of warmth still on his lips and the echo of sea salt still on his tongue. It is painful, but he can handle it. On those days, it is not so difficult to convince himself to get out of bed.    
The bad dreams, on the other hand, leave him trembling and clutching his sides. He will wake, skin sticky with sweat, cold and alone and gasping for breath like a man on the gallows. On those days, forcing himself up is like waging a war against his treacherous body, feeling every muscle, every cell, betray him with their hurt and their desire. The bad dreams are bad because they don't stop when he finally pulls himself out of his bed and into the world. Instead of waking up from his nightmares, he wakes up  _ into _ one.    
  
The worst dreams are the ones where Queequeg talks to him. It's a combination of things - his dream-memory never quite seems to get Queequeg's voice right, just accurate enough to fool himself into thinking it's him but just off enough to make him want the real thing that much more.     
But mostly it's the things Queequeg says to him.    
Sometimes, his words are angry and hurt and accusing. "Why didn't you help me?" He always says it smiling, kissing him, voice low and silky as he holds Ishmael against him. He plants begging questions between messy kisses along his arms, neck, face, and in those instances, Queequeg's voice is hard to differentiate from his own.    
That, at least, he can manage.    
More often, and more painfully, though, Queequeg gives him kindness, love, adoration, and that, Ishmael has no idea what to do with. He can't help but shudder under every loving, tender sentence, wince every time Queequeg tells him he's beautiful, tells him he loves him, wants him, needs him. He never can find his own voice in those dreams, never finds it in him to tell Queequeg to stop, to leave him and find something better.  _ You're wrong. I don't deserve this, _ a better man than him would say. Ishmael curses his cowardice, his selfish inability to speak.  _ I'm so sorry I couldn't help you. I should have done more for you. You should have been the one to survive this.  _ __   
  
When he wakes up from those dreams, he doesn't bother trying to wrench himself out of bed. He lets his body betray him, lets himself agonize over the undeserved memory of warm skin and soft, wandering hands and sloppy kisses. It is a guilty pleasure without the pleasure, drenched instead with loss and loathing.   
Eventually, some practical part inside Ishmael will drag him to the day that waits for him. He will be safe, then, safe and distracted. There is a certain relief to monotony, and he finds comfort in it until the sun once again returns to its nightly grave.    
He will lie awake, then, dreading and welcoming the night to come.    
He will pray for dreamless sleep.    



End file.
